Suzanne Robinson (32 page)

Fulke dropped his fork on his plate and glared at Juliana. “Control yourself. We’ve been through this time and again. Alexis is incapable of such evil, and anyway I saw him leave to join them, and he wouldn’t have had time to set that horrible trap.”

Kate paid no attention to the argument. She watched Alexis instead. He sat quietly and contemplated his uneaten food. He had about him an air of hopeless resignation. When he lifted his eyes to hers, she felt as if she were looking at a soul condemned to hell.

She didn’t believe in putting up with idiocy, so she threw her napkin down, got up, and walked around the long table to stand at his side. The arguing stopped as everyone stared at her. She held out her hand to Alexis. “Would you take me for a walk?”

They got out of the dining room, but Alexis excused himself as soon as they entered the garden. She tried to speak to him, but he shook his head and directed an absurd quotation at her.

“You made a mistake accepting me. ‘I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offenses at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them
shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven?’ Good night, my love.”

Kate kicked back the bedclothes. “What rot.”

She dressed and took breakfast with Sophia in her rooms. She was about to go for a morning ride when her maid brought her a small envelope. It was a note from Carolina Beechwith.

“I’ll be damned.” Kate opened the note.

Carolina was heartbroken. She couldn’t live without Alexis. Please, could Kate meet her at once at the ruins of Thyme Hall.

She glared at the note. “What does she think she can do? Make me hand him back to her? Probably expects me to share him.”

She didn’t want to go, but knowing Mrs. Beechwith’s determination where Alexis was concerned, Kate decided to face the woman. Slipping the note in a book on the table by her bed, she shrugged. Might as well fire a warning shot at her. It would save a fight later on.

She reached Thyme Hall before nine o’clock. It was a bright day, and the air was heavy with the moisture of the previous night’s rainfall. Water drops hung from the pointed leaves of the ivy and ferns. She heard the trill of a dove in some tree.

Carolina hadn’t arrived, so Kate pulled a book from her pocket. Settling on a rock in the sunshine, she attempted to distract herself. Her luck was bad, for she had mistakenly picked up Wordsworth. She groaned and eyed a poem. That awful meter. Ta
da
, ta
da
, ta
da
, ta
da.
Ta
da
ta
da
, ta
da.
Kate cringed. And the rhymes. Bower/flower, earth/birth, orchard plot/Lucy’s cot. Bleh!

She was scanning a stanza of particularly sickening sweetness when a shadow cut across the whiteness of the page. Before she could look up, something hit the back of
her head. She felt an exploding pain in her skull, then nothing.

She couldn’t have been unconscious long, because when she surfaced, her feet were bumping over the old bricks of Thyme Hall. She wanted to vomit. Her head had become a giant balloon, and the pain at the back of it was so great, she couldn’t summon the strength to open her eyes for long. When she did, she caught glimpses of dirt, grass, and the eroded flagstones inside the ruins. Someone was dragging her into Thyme Hall. Her body tilted, and she was swallowed by darkness. Since she was still awake, she guessed she was being hauled down some hole. Her feet bumped on several steps until they hit stone again. The jolting made her lose her tenuous hold on consciousness.

When she woke once more, she was alone, lying on cold rock. She moaned and sat up. Cradling her head, she concentrated on breathing and on not vomiting. Soon she was able to lift her head. Whoever had done this to her had left a candle burning near her. By its meager light she could see that she was in a narrow cell. There were no windows, only a wooden door set with a peephole. Dank air flowed under the door, making her shiver.

Struggling to her feet, Kate lurched over to the door. There was no knob on this side, and the lock was newly cleaned and oiled. She pounded on the wood. If she shouted, her head would split open. She didn’t have to shout, though. The small door to the peephole opened.

Kate cried out and jumped back. A hooded face peered at her. Black material completely shrouded the head of her captor. There were slits in the mask for eyes, but they were so narrow she couldn’t see into them.

“What are you doing?” Kate asked.

The mask was silent.

“Let me out. The marquess will come looking for me.”

A raspy voice came from the hood. “Such a shame. What am I to do with you? You aren’t like the others.”

The peephole door snapped shut. Kate leaped at it and pounded.

“Come back! You can’t leave me here. Please.” She pounded until her fists were bruised and her skin broken and bleeding. The hooded figure never came back. Finally exhausted, with stinging bolts of pain shooting through her head, Kate sank to the floor and burst into tears. Crying made her head hurt worse, so she stopped. In spite of her fear, she lay down, cradled her head on her arms, and closed her eyes.

Alexis had been closeted with Fulke and his estate manager all morning. It had been an uncomfortable few hours with Fulke brooding at him like an eagle whose chick preferred to walk rather than fly. And now he couldn’t find Kate. Neither Sophia nor Val nor his mother had seen her. Her maid said she’d gone riding that morning, and he’d tried to find her on horseback with no success.

Cursing her independent nature, Alexis resigned himself to doing without her until luncheon. She wasn’t back at one o’clock. He ate to the accompaniment of Val’s teasing and his references to lovesick Romeos. A message arrived from the head of the county police asking for an interview the following day. Already put out, Alexis’s mood deteriorated. To make matters worse, he had to go see Carolina and tell her he’d set the date for his wedding.

His irritation reached new heights when he arrived at the Beechwith residence and found old Mr. Beechwith returned from London. Concealing his foul disposition, Alexis spent a polite half hour in the company of his former mistress and her husband.

He arrived back at the castle to find that Kate hadn’t turned up. Assembling the household staff, he initiated a small hunt and spent the rest of the afternoon tearing around the castle looking for his missing fiancée.

Alexis grew more and more worried as the day progressed. By five o’clock the search had taken to horseback. He sent one party to cover the woods, then took another group to ride across pastures, fields, and the valley where Kate had caught him riding Theseus. He returned home well after dark to find Val waiting for him in the stable.

“No luck in the woods,” Val said. “I even had someone search Thyme Hall.”

Val had wanted to ride on the search, but Alexis had forbidden it, backed by two doctors, Fulke, and Juliana.

“When I find her, I’m going to … to …” Alexis couldn’t think of a punishment drastic enough.

“You’ll sweep her into your arms and moo at her like an enamored bull.”

“I will not.”

Val stumbled, and Alexis caught him by the neck of his jacket.

“Sorry,” Val said. He smiled at Alexis, but it was obvious that he was tired.

“You haven’t rested as the doctors instructed,” Alexis said. “You’ve been scrambling about the castle looking for Kate, haven’t you?”

“I’ll be fine. What I need is food.”

They joined the search party in the great cavern that was the Richfield kitchen. From Meredith, Alexis learned that Sophia had taken to her bed, hysterical with worry. Juliana had comforted the woman, given her laudanum to
keep her quiet, and retired for the night. She’d left word with Fulke that she would direct another search of the castle first thing in the morning.

Fulke delivered Juliana’s message while Alexis picked at the crust of his steak-and-kidney pie. Beside him Val had finished eating and was trying to keep his eyes open.

“She’s run off,” Fulke said.

Alexis shoved his pie away uneaten. “She has not. She’s had an accident.”

“She’s run off, probably to Cardigan.”

Alexis slammed to his feet, reached across the table, and grabbed Fulke’s collar. “She loves me.” He shoved Fulke away. “Besides, Kate isn’t the type of woman to flit off leaving silly notes behind confessing undying love for some fop.”

Val had his head down on his arms. From this pillow came his sleepy voice. “Didja look for a note?”

“Her maid said she went for a ride this morning and didn’t come back,” Alexis said. “There wouldn’t be a note.”

Val yawned. “Shoulda looked anyway.”

Alexis contemplated his friend’s wheat-colored curls for a moment, then strode rapidly from the kitchen with Fulke close behind.

He found the note tucked inside Kate’s book almost immediately. He read it and handed it to Fulke. His cousin snorted and tossed the paper on the bed.

“Alexis, we searched Thyme Hall.”

“I’m going to search it again.” He tried to step around Fulke. “Let me by, cousin.”

“I tell you, she’s run away.”

“Go to hell.”

Alexis tried to pass Fulke again. This time the older man got in front of him and shoved him in the chest. Alexis was thrown back, but kept his footing.

“I don’t have the patience for this, Fulke. Get out of my way or I’ll move you.”

“You’re exhausted. You can’t go racing around in the dark. Your horse will trip in a hole or stumble on a log.”

“Step aside, Fulke.”

Alexis started walking, but Fulke grabbed his shoulder. Alexis caught Fulke’s arm and gave it a quick twist. Fulke gasped and fell back. Alexis raced past him, but when Fulke called his name, he turned back to face his cousin. Fulke was pointing a pistol at him.

“Come here,” Fulke said.

Warily eyeing the gun, Alexis retraced his steps until he stood a yard away from Fulke.

“You are pointing a pistol at me, Fulke.”

His cousin nodded slowly. “God made a mistake when he created women. They are the source of all corruption, and I won’t have your chance for purity ruined by that harlot. Don’t move!” Fulke darted at Alexis, put the nose of the gun to his throat, and wrapped his free hand around Alexis’s neck.

Alexis let Fulke draw him closer. “I don’t feel as you do. Even if I’d never met Kate, I wouldn’t adopt celibacy. Look at me, Fulke. Can’t you see that this fear for her is driving me past reason? Let me go.”

“It’s all her fault.”

“Have you done something to her?” With effort, Alexis kept his voice calm. “By all that’s sacred, if you’ve hurt her—Have you?”

“No. God answered my prayers and made her succumb to her own lusts. She’s probably in Cardigan’s bed by now, and you’re staying here.”

Alexis grasped the barrel of the gun and dared Fulke with his gaze.

“Is this how you’re going to keep me saintly and pure, by killing me?”

“I’m going to keep you here where you’ll be safe.”

Alexis shook his head. “You’ll have to shoot me to keep me from leaving, right now, because I’m going to find Katie Ann if I have to do it while I’m bleeding to death.”

There was a slight relief from the pressure of the gun barrel at his throat. Alexis held his cousin’s gaze while he yanked the gun from him and tossed it away, into a chair. Fulke’s hands dropped to his sides.

“God has made you too trusting when it comes to women.”

Alexis threw himself at Fulke, landing on top of the man as he hit the floor. Pinning his cousin’s arms, he swore.

“By all the demons in hell, Fulke, I’m giving you one last chance. Swear by Almighty God that you don’t know where Kate is,”

Fulke tried to heave Alexis off him, but Alexis pounded him back to the floor.

“Swear,” he said.

“You’re addled by a whore’s tricks.”

Alexis fastened his hands on Fulke’s neck. “Swear!”

“I swear, damn you.”

Springing to his feet, Alexis snatched up the gun as he left.

Fulke shouted after him. “She will get you cast out of the Garden of Eden.”

“We’ll make our own Eden.”

Alexis rode to Thyme Hall with only Iago for company. Everyone was tired, and he didn’t expect to find Kate anyway. He walked around the shell of the house with a lamp held in one hand. Iago disturbed a wild cat, and Alexis had to keep a stranglehold on his collar to keep the dog from chasing after it. When Iago settled down, he resumed his wandering among the crumbled walls. He ran into vines
hanging from saplings, then stubbed his toe on a small boulder sitting in the middle of what was once the library. Weariness overtook him. Putting the lamp on the ground, he sat down on the rock. Iago lay down beside him.

Alexis had known fear like this before. It was a helpless, blind fear that came only when someone close was threatened. He’d last known it when Val disappeared into a cloud of mist, blood, and steel in the charge of the Light Brigade.

What was he going to do if he never found her? What if she had fallen from her horse and was lying dead in some field?

Don’t think about it.

Alexis leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs, and stared at his feet. Amid the noise of insects and rustling leaves, he could hear Iago sniffing. The spaniel lifted his head and craned his neck, sweeping the air with his nose. From that sensitive instrument came the dog’s characteristic snuffling sound. It was a sound he made when he’d caught scent of something.

Iago stood up. The snuffling grew louder, and Alexis sighed. The dog was going to find an animal trail and disappear again. The sucking motions of Iago’s jowls and nostrils increased. Suddenly the dog’s head dipped. He snorted at the ground in front of Alexis’s feet. Then, to Alexis’s consternation, the animal began to whine and paw at the ground.

“What’s the matter, old fellow?”

Iago barked once, then started to dig, only he couldn’t. His claws scratched through a layer of dirt and hit something hard.

Alexis rose and stomped on the ground. Metal. Moving the lamp, he dropped to his knees and shoved dirt aside as Iago snuffled frantically. Alexis’s hand hit a ring. It was a handle. Standing up, he shoved the rock he’d been sitting
on aside. It moved easily, as though it had been moved before. He kicked away dirt, leaves, and twigs, then grasped the ring and pulled. Dust flew in his face and pebbles hit his cheeks as a trapdoor sprang open and back.